


Hourglass

by randomling



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-26
Updated: 2006-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-11 02:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomling/pseuds/randomling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Rose's birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hourglass

In the TARDIS, Rose Tyler is sleeping soundly after a twenty-first birthday that spanned three centuries and endangered her life, at a rough count, fourteen times. Outside the TARDIS, in a Peckham hospital, Rose Tyler is seven hours old.

Jackie and Pete, looking ever so young, are fast asleep as the Doctor pads into the hospital room in his soft white shoes. Pete’s head is nestled by Jackie’s, his hand gripping hers. The baby opens her eyes and looks up as the Doctor bends over the hospital-issue crib. Her eyes are huge and honest, as they will be when she’s older. She wrinkles her nose at him, as if to say, I don’t think much of _you_.

The Doctor smiles a sad smile and picks her up.

As always, he can hear the clock ticking, the sand passing through the hourglass, in his head. Soon enough she’ll be seven days old, seven weeks, seven months, seven years, seven decades. Soon enough her dad will be gone, the trophies packed in boxes, relics of a past she doesn’t remember. Soon enough she’ll be backed against a wall in a dark basement, grabbing the hand of a man who is and isn’t him.

The baby gazes up at him, silent, and he looks back. Welcome to the universe, Rose Tyler, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it. In moments her parents will be waking up, wondering who is the tall young man in unfashionable clothes trying to steal their baby.

He puts Rose back into her cot and walks out of the room. She belongs to them.

For now.


End file.
